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Casey Laughter / Eclipse Sportswire

Trainer Larry Rivelli confirmed that Nobals, winner of the Grade 2 Kennedy Road stakes on Saturday, will head to Sha Tin for the Hong Kong Sprint (G1) on Dec. 8.

It was the first win in four starts this year for Nobals, who finished 2023 with a win in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint.

Possible jockeys for the race include E.T. Baird, who rode Nobals in his last two starts; Ryan Moore and Umberto Rispoli, Rivelli told Horse Racing Nation on Wednesday.

Rivelli said Nobals came out of the Kennedy Road well and that he might not work him again before the six-furlong Hong Kong Sprint. And he wasn’t sure when Nobals would ship. “There’s a lot of hoops to jump through.”

Another runner in the field for the Hong Kong Sprint will be Starlust, a 3-year-old U.K.-based colt who got his first graded win of the year in last month’s Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint.

Nobals, a 5-year-old gelded son of Noble Mission, had his first start of the year in July, finishing fourth in an optional-claiming allowance race at Saratoga. Then he was fourth in the Turf Sprint (G2) at Kentucky Downs and fifth in the Woodford (G2) at Keeneland.

Nobals has won on turf or synthetic at several other tracks, but Rivelli thinks he didn’t like the turf in those two starts before the Kennedy Road. At Kentucky Downs, he said, “you either like it or you don’t.” And Baird said Nobals also didn’t like the track at Keeneland

Rivelli has raced in Hong Kong once before, when Nicole’s Dream took on males in the 2005 Hong Kong Sprint and finished 12th.

He doesn’t plan to make the trip this time, he said, noting that it’s a 16-hour flight. “It’s a long ride home if you get beat.”